Until last month, Jake Rosenbarger spent part of his workday in a hazardous materials mask.

Not exactly what he and his wife, Kim, signed up for when they started Kim and Jake's Cakes, a bakery in the Table Mesa shopping center in Boulder. What they planned when they started in 2010 was to make fun and interesting cakes, high quality, with good ingredients. They succeeded at that, starting with a strawberry margarita cake, according to Kim, and working their way into truly unusual cakes such as an Herbes de Provence cake and a red wine cake with a cream cheese frosting and manchego garnish.

"I like bold flavors, and that translates into cakes. It's not subtle," Jake says.

Says Kim: "Jake has such a great palate."

However, as they found out a year and a half ago, Jake's palate can no longer be sampling the subtleties of wheat or any other grain containing gluten. A diagnosis of celiac disease meant that a mere particle of gluten could retrigger symptoms, in Jake's case a profound fatigue, rather than the more typical gastrointestinal issues. Thus, the hazmat mask, which Jake had last worn when he helped clean the muck out of Kim's family home in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

"I wore this every day," Jake says, pointing to the mask. "Pretty unappealing for the guests."

With the mask situation growing more untenable and gluten exposure still a possibility, the couple decided to go all in on gluten free.

"We embraced it," Jake says. "(We thought) Let's make better stuff."

The bakery was already making some tasty gluten-free items in a separate non-gluten kitchen. The decision to make gluten free the sole focus, allowed them to bake at the Table Mesa site, sans hazmat mask. Last month, the transition to a no-gluten menu was complete.

Leaning in to taste

The journey has been an interesting one. Jake explains that gluten free is not quite as daunting as it once was. More types of non-gluten flours are readily available, and, perhaps more important, they are now as finely milled as cake flour made from wheat. The fine grinding makes a fine texture easier to achieve. The bakery uses different flours in its various products, most commonly a mix of gluten-free oat, brown rice and tapioca.

Cakes were not super hard to master, especially since Kim and Jake's style of cake is a Southern, egg-generous, somewhat custardy type confection. The bakery also chose not to exclude other ingredients such as sugar, eggs and butter that are sometimes missing from gluten-free products designed to be safe for people with multiple dietary concerns. While some of their cakes are vegan, others contain eggs. The same goes for their cookies that include favorites such as chocolate chip and peanut butter, as well as more unusual creations such as strawberry poppy seed and chocolate almond.

Three varieties of cookies are carried by all the Whole Foods stores in the company's Rocky Mountain region, says Catherine Trujillo, regional bakery coordinator. She says the bakery's products have "a really pure flavor profile."

A gluten-free staff of life

While Jake was happy with the gluten-free cakes and cookies, a truly delicious bread remained elusive.

"He grew up on really great bread," Kim says. "It was the one thing missing from his diet once he got diagnosed with celiac."

While there are gluten-free breads perfectly fine for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a piece of toast, what Jake wanted was a crusty European-style loaf with a great, airy structure and good chew, a "a loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou" kind of bread.

If at first you don't succeed, try 200 times.

That's how many iterations of his bread recipe that Jake estimates he tried before hitting the sweet spot. He wanted sourdough, so he created a starter. The finished product, in fact uses two starters. He found the flours he felt worked best. And he whipped xanthan gum, the product of a fermented bacteria that is used in commercial foods such as salad dressings as an emulsifier. It's also a godsend for gluten-free bakers, because it adds structure to raised doughs and batters that depended on gluten in their original incarnations.

Jake says gluten-free baking is less forgiving than its glutinous counterpart. Changes in moisture in the air, for example, may mean that he has to change certain ratios in his recipes.

The result of his bread obsession: buns, pizza dough, a peasant loaf and a baguette. Kim says the bakery has had several customers tell them they were so affected by tasting something close to wheat bread again that they cried.

The baguette is currently available at Alfalfa's Market, Fresh Thymes restaurant and The Kitchen Next Door. Jake has also created a gluten-free pizza crust that is used at Pizzeria Locale.

In addition, three types of hamburger buns — plain, a seeded bun with chia, millet and poppy seeds, and an olive oil, rosemary and thyme bun will be available at Whole Foods stores in Boulder and Superior. The bread will be available there in May. The market is also working with Jake on gluten-free bread crumbs and a refrigerated cookie dough, Trujillo says.

"They have a really wonderful crust and crumb," she says of the bread products. "The message is gluten free can really taste good.

Directions: In a 6-quart mixing bowl add eggs, sugar, oil, almond, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. With whisk attachment or by hand whisk the egg mixture until everything is incorporated. When the batter gets shiny, add one cup of buttermilk and two cups of flour mix, whisk on medium until there are no lumps and repeat with the remaining flour and buttermilk, mix until the batter is a smooth paste (this may take a couple minutes but it's important!). Add poppy seeds and mix until batter is smooth. Pour (or spoon) batter into two 8-inch or 9-inch oiled and lined round pans and bake at 300 degrees for about 55 minutes or until a knife inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Set aside to cool.

Directions: Mix the first four items with a whisk attachment or by hand. Add gluten-free flour mix and switch to dough hook. Add rest of ingredients and mix until stiff dough forms.Roll dough out ½ -inch thick and bake on a sheet pan at 350 for 25 minutes. Remove from oven and when cool enough to handle, slice on a bias or however you like, and bake cookie strips again, each side for 8 minutes.

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